Field notes · Troubleshooting
Franchise not working or showing offline?
Choose the symptom you can see. Do not rebuild a zoo or grind Career to solve a connection error.
The short answer
A connection error, a market with little stock and an Accreditation lock need different checks. First compare the time with the announced maintenance window, check the installed update, and note the exact message. A normal internet connection alone does not establish that Franchise or the Workshop is available.[1][2]
The announced 15 October maintenance window
Frontier announced maintenance for 15 October 2026 at about 07:00 BST, expected to last around one hour. That is 06:00–07:00 UTC or 14:00–15:00 in Shanghai. Franchise and the Workshop were expected to be unavailable during the window.[1]
This is an announced schedule, not a live status monitor or confirmation that service resumed at the estimated end. If you are reading later, check the latest official message rather than treating this historical window as the cause of a new outage.
Match the message
| What you see | What to check next | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Offline / unable to connect | Check the maintenance timing and current game update, then compare whether Workshop also fails. Keep the exact server error for support.[1] | That your animal roster is locked by Accreditation. |
| Market opens but animals are scarce | Frontier acknowledged launch capacity and availability problems, then described stability and supply changes in 1.0.4.[1][2] | That every missing species is a bug, or that every earlier supply issue is still active. |
| An animal displays an Accreditation requirement | Check the requirement in the current mode. Use our Accreditation guide to separate modes and unlocks. | That more restarts or Career medals will unlock it in Franchise. |
Reported attempts: keep the outcomes attached
Launch-thread search records include a restart that worked for one player and restarts that failed for others. The update-thread search record includes a developer reply asking about VPN use and location, followed by a player who said they used no VPN and still could not connect.[3][4]
The directly opened Reddit pages did not expose all those later replies at the same time as the search record. We preserve this limitation: these are indexed player/developer reports, not fixes we reproduced.
- After checking maintenance and the update, fully close and reopen the game once. Record whether the same message returns.
- If you use a VPN, note that in your report; if you try a normal connection, compare the result. Do not assume a VPN is the cause or weaken your firewall to force a connection.
- If both Workshop and Franchise still fail, record your store/platform, region, installed version and the account-linking message shown by the game.
That gives support a connection case they can investigate, rather than a list of animal-unlock complaints.
Send the problem to the right place
Frontier Support · Planet Zoo 2 request form ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) is the support route referenced in the developer’s update-thread response.[4]
If the game runs but a particular animal is locked, use the progression branch first. If the entire PC game will not open, use the PC startup guide; Franchise troubleshooting assumes you can reach the game.
1.0.4 is an official update reference, not a guarantee that every player has that build installed or that every connection issue has ended. Checked 15 October 2026; this page does not display real-time server status.
Sources & verification
- Frontier on Steam · feedback, maintenance and 1.0.4 ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) — 14 Oct 2026 official announcement; planned 15 Oct window and supply/stability changes.
- Reddit · Richard / Frontier Official ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) — Launch acknowledgement of connection and animal-availability problems; historical, not live status.
- Reddit · launch-day discussion ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) — 13–14 Oct search records contain conflicting restart results; direct-page cache is shorter.
- Reddit · PhilW_FD update thread ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) — 14 Oct search records include VPN/location/support discussion; not all replies exposed in direct-page view.
Checked 15 October 2026. Research-based guidance; we have not personally tested these setups or fixes. Earlier player reports may describe an older build.
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